26 Responses to “Idolatry and the sanctity of whatever”

Comments

1. Dear Willem

   As Usually , Nice and Great Articles …

   Wish you & FT “Happy Easter” …
   Best Regards

   Posted by: Riyad | March 23rd, 2008 at 3:12 am | Report this comment
   

2. Dear Willem,
   I have always enjoyed your economic analysis and your willingness to speak clearly. This time you went a step further on the most important topic of all. It takes courage to attack corruption that dresses itself as sanctity. Truly appreciated.

   Posted by: gianluca | March 23rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm | Report this comment
   

3. I support Mr. Buiter to the extent that he believes in the dignity and value of the human being and condemns the use of religion as an excuse for promoting conflict and hatred. But I might remind him that we live in a world that includes great and valuable spiritual traditions besides those of the God centered Abrahamic religions. If we truly want to avoid “idolatry” and religious conflict, we should also respect their insights as to how human beings can live together in a peaceful world as well, even though their scriptures may not teach the concept of the One God of the Torah, the New Testament and the Qur’an.

   Happy Easter.

   Posted by: a buddhist | March 23rd, 2008 at 4:58 pm | Report this comment
   

4. Dear Professor Buiter,
   While I sympathise with most of your argument, I should point out that not all error is idolatry. “Thou shalt do no murder” is construed by many Roman Catholics as forbidding abortions because they have accepted a dogma that independent life begins at conception. I am not qualified to gauge whether this is right or wrong so I accept that there are differing views and do not judge people on the basis of which view they take on this issue.
   Secondly “holy” and, to a lesser extent, “sacred” are used in English to describe things dedicated to God’s use, not just God himself (”Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy”).
   The fight over Jerusalem currently is about real estate but in the past has sometimes been about access for pilgrims - Saladin, who seems to have believed it was a holy city, made an agreement with Richard to allow access by Christian pilgrims. In this case I should go further than you and state that those who are now trying or threatening to drive out all others are disobeying the Torah, Bible and Koran.
   Holy men (and women) are very rare, much rarer than “holy men”, but they do exist and you are to be pitied if you have reached middle age without ever having met a single one.

   Posted by: John | March 23rd, 2008 at 5:36 pm | Report this comment
   

5. My above comment did not make any reference to the philosophy of secular humanism, which along with certain non-Abrahamic belief systems or religions, mainly originating in South and East Asia, asserts that morality and belief in human dignity are possible without any reference to a divine being.

   Posted by: a buddhist | March 23rd, 2008 at 7:02 pm | Report this comment
   

6. I did not in any way mean to say or imply that ethics or the moral underpinnings of human behaviour require divine foundations, such as a belief in God(s). I meant to take aim only at those perversions of the great Abrahamic faiths that assign to the mundane attributes that only belong to God.

   The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a jealous God: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me.” ‘Other Gods’ includes worshipping human life.

   No doubt in every usage the words ‘holy’, ’sacred’ or ’sanctified’ now mean little more than ’special’ or ‘important to me’. But when Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the head of the Scottish Catholic church invokes the ‘sanctity and dignity of human life’, he should know he has crossed the line between Christianity and paganism and is now dancing in front of the golden calf of human life. Life is precious; its dignity should always be recognised and where possible respected. But it is not sacred in the Christian faith and the respect for life is not and cannot be absolute.

   The same descent into paganism and idol worship can be observed in the case of many religiously trained fundamentalist Christians prominent in the anti-abortion movement in the US. Former Arkansas Governor and unsuccessful Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee (a former minister) regularly banged on about the sanctity of life during his abortive campaign for the Republican nomination. Attributing properties or characteristics to mundane things that belong or pertain only to God defines idolatry.

   Posted by: Willem Buiter | March 23rd, 2008 at 11:27 pm | Report this comment
   

7. Idolatry comes from the Greek word eidololatria, so should it not be permuted in English as idoLO latry ?

   As English is not my first language, I am confused about the meaning of sanctity , sacredness and holiness, which one is the strongest ?

   In the Greek Orthodox Dogma , we believe in One God but in the Holy Trinity, but we use the word “aghios” to describe all things of God ,I am not sure what would be the exact translation of it.

   Therefore I see a difference betwen “holy ” and “saint” whan applied to persons or objects or concepts.
   I may have met some holy people, meaning usually highly spiritual and transcending, but not real saints or Holy in that sense.

   I disagree with Professor Buiter in his saying that “life is not sacred”. If we believe in God , then we believe that Life emanated from God and the Soul (psyche) is a piece of God, etc, therefore Life is sacred.

   I am a devout Christian, but in my interpretation of Christian Spirit , Euthanasia should be allowed but strictly restricted .
   The problem is that the interpretation may lead to abuse.
   Same for abortion, same for stem cell research.

   However, the rejection of a broader interpretation of the Scriptures, does not qualify to me as idolatry but rather as narrow minded and vision lacking exegesis.

   I cetainly agree that “Holy Wars” are an anathema by any standards and in any language..

   Posted by: Marie-Athena ,lawyer | March 23rd, 2008 at 11:27 pm | Report this comment
   

8. Thank you for so clearly telling people what God truely is. I didn’t expect it from a professor of political economy, but it’s so encouraging.

   Posted by: Andy Sun | March 24th, 2008 at 1:26 am | Report this comment
   

9. Dear Mr Buiter:

   I am glad you separated the issue of moral values

   which can be created by societies and civilizations from the notion of One God.
   Concerning this notion, i observe that it is an undfined term. One wonders what are its properties.
   Personally i believe there do not exist any empirical grounds for such a belief.

   Indeed most people in my profession, (theoretical physics), especially cosmologists would entertain ideas similar to those of LaPlace:
   The notion of god is an unnecessary hypothesis
   when it comes to the question of the creation of the solar system. By extension the same holds for the big bang.

   Posted by: MP | March 24th, 2008 at 3:08 am | Report this comment
   

10. Dear Mr. Buiter,

    I am a practicing Catholic from México and have found your article very much against key points related to the dignity of the human life. Human beings were created to the image of God and from that perspective the earthly interpretations, like the one you are making, retaled to abortion and euthanasia are misleading big masses of readers. That is no good. Regardless of my opposition to such earthly conclusions, I wish for you only the very best.

    Posted by: GMendoza | March 24th, 2008 at 4:55 am | Report this comment
    

11. I am pleasantly surprised that you chose to put aside all the differences and highlight one most important fact that - there is no god but One God. That is the message being given by all true religions of the world. Yet it is such a pity that most of them got corrupted by the human greed to derive benefit by claiming divinity.

    Posted by: Fahim | March 24th, 2008 at 6:13 am | Report this comment
    

12. Wilem,
    There is one very important point which is missing in all these arguments. Apart from the fact that it is unquestionable that God Himself is Holy, God has also made or decreed(depending on whether THE BOOK of revelation is authentic) a few things( Including real estates for worship) and persons(prophets) sacred. Then, we should accept that these things as described by God are sacred as He is the Knower and Creator of All things.

    Posted by: Aleem Ramankhan | March 24th, 2008 at 8:58 am | Report this comment
    

13. […] William Buiter, Professor of European Political Economy, London School of Economics and Political Science, cuts to the chase, The Christian faith teaches (straight from the Tanakh) that the two great commandments are “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind …and … Love your neighbour as yourself. All the law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” All the rest is interpretation and rationalisation. […]

    Posted by: Bippr » Blog Archive » Whatever Your Version of God Is, and Whoever Your Neighbour Might Be, Love, of God and One’s Neighbour, Are the Only Absolutes | March 24th, 2008 at 10:56 am | Report this comment
    

14. I realize that my comment has nothing to do with the subject at hand, I never really believed in useless debate over religion or politics. My intention was to comment about something really important…. I find it quite fascinating that Mr. Willem Buiter has the uncanny likeness of the late Mr. John Inman who portrayed “Mr Humphries” of the famous BBC show “Are you being served”.

    Posted by: Tom yuhas | March 24th, 2008 at 11:05 am | Report this comment
    

15. Willem, I don?t find anything offensive in your arguments. My difficulty is that you start with basic assumptions about religion for which there is no evidence. Humans have been contemplating religious notions for a very short time indeed in the context of geological or evolutionary time. Nevertheless I can see why they should continue set store by religious ideas if they are still helpful, though written down in the bronze age. Then, human life was very nasty, brutish, and very short. No medicines, no hospitals, no schools or universities, no sanitation, infections, plague, drought were expected, tribal wars were the norm, and so on. The only remedy was to proliferate as fast as possible, which became an article of some faiths. Humans devastated one area then moved on to ruin another and they are still doing it. There were not so many of them then, so something better was almost always round the corner - and there just had to be something better after death, hence the idea of heaven.

    Humans have a uniquely complex brain but it is very new on an evolutionary time scale and many ideas, especially the notion of creation, are very simple and limiting.

    The most potent force in any religion is not its beliefs but its formal organisation, typified by its ?company articles and rules? , the setting out of its aims, the propagation of its message and so on, all of which are designed to give it more political power. This is most obvious in Christianity but applies to all religions more or less.

    The writers of religious texts were undoubtedly unusual, geniuses in our terms, with the ability to summarise and set out the rules of human behaviour. It is not difficult to understand why their ‘message’ seemed to come from a divine spirit. But the rush to see science as an enemy simply exposes the ignorance of the priests of religions, as it always did.

    On the other hand I have no sympathy with science media donkeys, Lords and all, who have rushed into print to criticise Catholic bishops. The latter are just doing their job, making people think harder, telling them how powerful and satisfying are the rules of behaviour.

    It’s all very entertaining, but humans will soon have destroyed life on the planet and will then destroy themselves.

    Posted by: JFM | March 24th, 2008 at 12:02 pm | Report this comment
    

16. May I ask the following question? Why is “the God” sacred?

    Posted by: YA | March 24th, 2008 at 5:06 pm | Report this comment
    

17. Mr. Buiter, I find your conclusions about the value of human life as compared to the value of religious mythology to be abhorrent. This declaration that something you cannot see, hear, or touch is of higher value than human life is a familiar one, because it has been the basis of most of the world’s genocides.

    Belief in “the One God” always involves beliefs that this entity wants us to do certain things or is of a certain nature. However there are a million different opinions about what this nature or this intention is (you clearly have your own opinions too). How then, are people supposed to resolve their worldly differences with an ethics system based on religious opinions that by nature have no supporting evidence and no fundamental undisputed value except for the sacredness of “the One God” itself? One time-honored solution is to conclude divine providence and hack the other guy to bits. This decision is easy when human life is not considered sacred.

    Utilitarians and Humanists at least try to anchor their ethics in the real world and place value on human life, utility or suffering. They are held accountable to the pursuit of these values. Those who consider only God to be sacred are free to conclude anything for which they can find others to agree with them. Then they can call it their faith. Religion is the ultimate ethical relativism.

    Posted by: Chris, Little Rock, AR | March 24th, 2008 at 9:55 pm | Report this comment
    

18. It is rare for me to jump to Professor Buiter’s defence since he can speak quite well for himself but I must say that Chris is at least as wrong as his ex-governor(?s). If he had read Professor Buiter’s blog properly, he would have found no valuation of human life: Prof Buiter disagrees with Cardinal O’Brien as to whether “sanctity” can and/or should be applied thereto.
    Secondly, religion has been the cause of a very small minority of the world’s recorded genocides.
    Thirdly I have NEVER heard of Utilitarians or Humanists being held to account for anything, let alone for the suffering caused by their actions.
    Fourthly Religion is not relativism, religious people actually have absolute beliefs. Where is there any relativism in the Ten Commandments? (I cannot read Arabic or Sanskrit, but I gather from Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist friends that all the world’s major religions are based on absolute values, in contrast to utilitarianism.
    Fifthly Prof Buiter’s blog was about the use of religious terminology in debate (here I do disagree with him, but that may well be due to mistranslations from Dutch or American). Nowhere does he suggest hacking the other guy to bits (unless he begs you to do so because the alternative is unjustifiable suffering)

    Posted by: John | March 24th, 2008 at 11:11 pm | Report this comment
    

19. Hello Willem,

    Thank you for a thoughtful and thought-provoking posting. About 30 years ago, when you were at Bristol University, I was an undergrad there and I remember that you unabashedly accepted an invitation to speak at a student event on something to do with Christianity that I attended. I was new to the faith, and I remember being struck then by the logic and “interestingness” of your views. You have indeed not lost your touch in that regard.

    At this Easter season, please accept my thanks for the role you (and Demery and Duck and Deaton) played in setting me on the path toward what has been a very enjoyable and fulfilling academic career. And hearty congratulations for all you have accomplished.

    Most sincerely, from an admiring former student who has only just discovered your blog,

    John R. M. Hand
    H. Allen Andrew Distinguished Professor
    Kenan-Flagler Business School
    UNC Chapel Hill, USA

    Posted by: John R. M. Hand | March 24th, 2008 at 11:54 pm | Report this comment
    

20. OT….the bear factoids

    “The Federal Reserve helped engineer the takeover two weeks ago after customer withdrawals crippled the New York-based firm. The central bank agreed at the time to provide a financial guarantee against losses on a pool of “less-liquid” Bear Stearns assets that the firm had valued at $30 billion.

    The Fed adjusted its financial support today, the two banks said. JPMorgan will now be responsible for the first $1 billion of potential losses on the Bear Stearns assets, while the Fed will assume the risk of loss on the remaining $29 billion.

    BlackRock Role

    The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a statement today that it will lend $29 billion to a limited liability company formed to purchase and then sell the unspecified assets. JPMorgan will lend the remaining $1 billion. The regulator hired BlackRock Inc., the largest publicly traded asset manager, to oversee the liquidation of the collateral.

    The Fed loan and the JPMorgan loan are for a term of 10 years. The central bank will pay interest at the credit market rate, currently 2.5 percent. JPMorgan will pay the same rate plus 475 basis points, currently 7.25 percent. Any sale proceeds that remain after repaying the loans and covering “necessary operating expenses” for the newly formed company will go to the Fed, the regulator said.”

    Posted by: john bull | March 25th, 2008 at 1:35 am | Report this comment
    

21. Willem,

    It is rare these days to meet a religious Dutchman, so if you are indeed religious (and not simply mocking religion) then congratulations for originality! However, you predictably spared that most sacred of sacred cows, the “sanctity of the environment”, any criticism. Am I right to assume that this is the only vestige of paganism allowed in your ardently monotheistic dogma?

    Posted by: Dave the American | March 25th, 2008 at 10:17 am | Report this comment
    

22. John,
    I understand that Mr. Buiter does not mean to say that human life is completely without value, but I must point out that he does place the value of life at some point below the value of religious notions. My understanding of the word “sacred” is that it is a somewhat more powerful and urgent term than, say, “precious” or “valuable” or even “priceless.” If religious notions are sacred and human life is only valuable, then religious notions are more important. This is exactly how the people who shoot abortion providers or kill European critics of Islam justify their actions. Hopefully this makes clear the link between this sort of thinking and violence.

    If you would like to read about an example of religious genocide and find Bosnia, Sudan, and the holocaust to be too recent, just open your old testament and read about how the ancient tribes of Israel killed every man, woman, child, and animal in the cities they conquered. Or how about the crusades and the conquistadors? It’s the same formula throughout human history: human life < religious notions.

    Finally, religion is the ultimate moral relativism because it involves the selective application of sections from ancient texts, many of which contradict other such sections, and making the choice to ignore others. For example, how many Christians avoid eating shellfish? The bible spends more words condemning shellfish than it does condemning homosexuality (godhatesshellfish.com). How many Christians strive to amass great wealth despite Jesus’ admonition that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the head of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven. Churches in my area all have gift shops despite the fact that this “money changing” in the temple infuriated Jesus to the point of violence. Does the bible ban slavery or does it not? It depends which Christians you ask, someone now or someone 200 years ago. Jesus was strangely silent on the subject and the bible hasn’t changed very much in that time, so we can conclude that it was positive cultural changes, certainly not the bible, that caused slavery to end. Eye for an eye or turn the other cheek? I could go on and on about the lack of absolutism in religion.

    The selective application of contradictory rules is nothing more than a roundabout way of justifying moral behavior, whether right or wrong. Because choosing which rules to follow and which to ignore is subjective, there is no objective way to evaluate moral decisions based on religion and no way that a person can be sure that they are not just simply justifying their immoral behavior with easily available religious excuses.

    So why even pursue this exercise? Why not just pursue your values directly and say “I have primary values and they are human life, human freedom, and the well-being of future generations” for example? With such clarity so easy to acheive, why endure the moral confusion of a selectively interpreted bible or koran?

    Posted by: Chris, Little Rock, AR | March 25th, 2008 at 2:11 pm | Report this comment
    

23. Dear Chris,
    Professor Buiter correctly points out that Jesus considered doing God’s will was more important than his own mortal life. Please do not confuse martyrdom with murder.

    I do not regard it as martyrdom but in the last century millions of people were willing to, and actually did, die for their country.

    Secondly, “sacred” is not necessarily directly comparable to precious, valuable or priceless.

    I do not want, in this or any other post, to indulge in a debate about the ethics of abortion because I just do not have the key data, but I can state that anyone who shoots an abortion provider intending to kill them is breaking the commandment. So, if they are Christians, their religious thinking is NOT what leads them to violence - it should prevent them.

    Do you wish to classify communism as a religion? If so, I have difficulties in arguing about Bosnia, Cambodia, the Crimean Tatars etc: most communists object to that and prefer to classify themselves as Humanists. If not, then I should point out that all the three recent instances that you cite were ethnic rather than
    religious-based genocides. You may only have heard that Hitler killed Jews, but he paid no attention to their religious beliefs, slaughtering Christians of Jewish descent just as readily as those adhering to the Jewish religion, and his “final solution” included wiping out the Gypsies/Romanies who were non-Aryans; he also treated Slavs (Russians, Poles, Czechs etc) as an inferior race. In Sudan the fighting for the last twenty-odd years has been on ethnic grounds, with religion only mentioned in order to garner support for one side or the other several years after the civil war started. There was one attempt for a just, peaceful solution - by a religious leader (the great-grandson of the Mahdi) when he was elected, but he was overthrown by a military coup by Arab extremists.

    Please re-read my previous post: Saladin believed (or seemed to) that Jerusalem was a holy city and treated it as such; also Cortes fought for Spain, not the Pope.

    Christians (as distinct from Jews) are not forbidden to eat shellfish or indeed anything else as you may see from reading Chapter 10 of Acts. A more detailed and contextual reading of the Bible should make clear a distinction between dietary and ceremonial rules enjoined on Old Testament Jews (but not on Christians: see Acts 10) and more fundamental priorities cited by Professor Buiter.

    I infer from your suggestion that substituting “turning the other cheek” for “an eye for an eye” involves relativism that you have understood neither. “An eye for an eye” puts an upper limit on compensation/retribution; “turn the other cheek” was an instruction not to start a fight over a left-handed slap which was then an insult rather than an injury; both are absolutes not relatives. The instructions following “turn the other cheek” means that Christians are enjoined to loving forgiveness rather than retribution.

    The Bible does speak about slavery (which in many cases in Old Testament Israel comprised unpaid labour for a limited period in order to repay a debt): overwhelmingly what it says describes the duties of slaveowners and third parties to slaves (although Paul also mentions the balancing duties of slaves to their masters). There is no record of anyone asking Jesus.
    It is not rational to blame the Bible for the failure of individuals to obey its teaching.

    If there is a tactful way to describe your penultimate paragraph, I have overlooked it. I cannot see how there would be no way of objectively recognising murder, theft, worshipping graven images, adultery, or false witness.

    Posted by: John | March 26th, 2008 at 11:22 pm | Report this comment
    

24. Thanks for the intriguing conversation John.

    I do not think I have confused murder and martyrdom in my examples. I have demonstrated how placing the value of “doing God’s will” above the value of human life will result in the aforementioned horrors if a person believes that committing those horrors is God’s will.

    Then, you might say, the problem is that the person believes an incorrect interpretation of God’s will. My point is, what biblical reasons can you offer to convince the person otherwise - that their faith is wrong? What could they offer to convince you that your faith was wrong? There are millions of Christians who disagree with Mr. Buiter’s analysis regarding stem cell research or euthanasia and who point to their own biblical analysis for their reasoning. If they are all wrong, perhaps we can blame the bible for not being a clearer moral guide, a direct declaration of values such as I described earlier.

    Does “eye for an eye” mandate execution for murderers or is the sinfulness and injustice of Jesus’ crucifixion a lasting condemnation of capital punishment? It is a matter of dispute among scholars of the bible, which is an amazing failure for a purported absolutist moral document.

    It is exactly this ambiguity that makes successful religions such as Christianity and Islam so popular. There are enough angles for analysis that it can fit into any culture, any agenda, and any preexisting moral attitudes. Furthermore, the contradictions allow us to ignore sections we disagree with, such as wealthy Westerners do with the camel through the head of the needle quote from Jesus. This same quote is no doubt a big deal in countries with abject poverty.

    If nothing else, the failure of the bible to condemn slavery or the oppression of women, at a time when both were endemic (and popular), brings its reliability as a universal moral compass into serious question.

    I can only conclude: Religion is the ultimate moral relativism.

    But it is worse even than that. Because it is taboo to criticize or question religion, the moral values underlying decisions can be effectively shielded by saying “that decision is based on my faith.” Suddenly the discussion reverts back to dueling bible quotes and nobody has to or is expected to change. Their “faith” would be considered weak if they did. Thus misconceptions and moral failures can become entrenched and made into tradition.

    Finally, I do consider extreme nationalism/patriotism to be a form of religion, because both elevate the state to an unquestionable, unaccountable “sacred” status. To the extent that communism or other one-party states fit this description at some point in history, then I would say that the people were worshiping the state. Then again, we have plenty of state-worshipers in our Western democracies too. Most of them intertwine their notions of God’s will with national destiny. It seems that thousands of people die every time they take control, but what can we expect from that old formula: human life < God’s will?

    State-worshipers, like God-worshipers, use an abstract proxy (the state or God) as a source or an excuse for moral decision making. Either proxy obscures and eventually subverts what really should be considered important - our values themselves - for which we, not ancient texts or modern bureaucracies, are held accountable.

    Posted by: Chris, Little Rock, AR | March 27th, 2008 at 8:50 pm | Report this comment
    

25. Chris,
    We are never going to agree because we are obviously speaking different languages. The ten commandments, including “Thou shalt do no murder”, is a list of absolute commands and when Professor Buiter stated that Jesus placed doing God’s will above his own life, you claimed that was used as a justification for murder, which is clearly and explicitly contrary to God’s will.
    In my language absolute commands do not amount to relativism.
    The Bible contains a series of laws, instructions and injunctions to protect women from oppression, so either you have a different meaning for the same word or you are just playing with words to mislead; you appear to have completely ignored my note on “an eye for an eye”.
    Your argument is equivalent to blaming the rules of arithmetic if a child said two plus two equals five.

    Posted by: John | March 28th, 2008 at 5:15 pm | Report this comment
    

26. John,
    I did not mean to ignore your opinion about the meaning of “eye for an eye.” My whole point is that if you met someone who felt that this interpretation was incorrect (for example, if they felt turn the other cheek was a nullifying replacement for eye for an eye), there would be no objective way to convince them otherwise. The bible does not clearly explain how to resolve this or a thousand other arguments. Perhaps if it did, it would read like a modern legal code and not be very popular!

    Similarly, did “do not kill” apply to the Israelites, who the bible describes as doing God’s will as they destroyed various cities full of people (after receiving the commandments)? One might say that infidels are apparently excluded from the rule based on this context, and how could we argue with that?

    Perhaps you have resolutions for each of the dilemmas I could present and perhaps you even have chosen a systematic, consistent method for choosing how to interpret your religious document. My point is not to challenge you to produce an opinion, but rather to point out that choosing a method of how to interpret God’s will is an act of opinion in itself. If someone else chooses to use a different method of interpretation, then how could we show this method to be incorrect? Further, if we are choosing methods that determine what we end up believing, how can we say that we did not simply choose those beliefs by choosing the method? How can we prove that we didn’t just choose a method whose consequences we liked?

    In stark contrast, 2+2=4 can be demonstrated, and disagreement is provably irrational.

    What we are left with then, are thousands of differing sets of religious opinions and no way to resolve the differences. What would moral relativism look like? It would look like thousands of people pointing at each other and claiming that everyone else is wrong.

    Posted by: Chris, Little Rock, AR | March 31st, 2008 at 4:18 pm | Report this comment
    

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